Month: March 2016

This controversy involving the LGBT activists and state legislatures with “religious liberty” bills is very troubling. You already have a “religious liberty bill” — it’s called the Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment which protects your right to practice whatever religion you want to, and your right to free expression of it. The First Amendment also protects your right to not practice a religion or to express non-religious or anti-religious views if you want to. No one has a right to force someone else to practice or express a religious view, and no one has a right to prevent someone else from practicing or expressing a religious view. The rights that are being violated, by social activists on the right and the left, are private property rights, freedom of contract, and freedom of association. Those are the very principles upon which America was founded. Or so I thought.

It seems to me that the anti-same-sex marriage conservatives do not understand those principles, obviously, when they want to make laws which prohibit same-sex marriage in their state. They want the government to control private people’s marriages and relationships. They do not believe in freedom of contract and association. No, ALL people have a right to have a contract with others, whether it is business, personal, or both. Usually, a marital contract is both personal and economic. Morally, the terms of such contracts are the business of those participating, as long as they are voluntary contracts and as long as people are peaceful. And as to who gets to participate in such contracts, that’s also the business of the parties involved, not their neighbors, and certainly not the government.

So of course a religious minister or priest has a right to not involve oneself in administering a same-sex wedding if he doesn’t want to. Unless he is employed by a church whose owners specifically say that as part of his job he must do that. If he doesn’t like it he can work somewhere else. And of course an entire church or otherwise private organization has a private property right and freedom of association right to not administer same-sex weddings if they don’t want to. And a private justice of the peace has that same right of refusal. And of course the same-sex couple who are being denied a service can go find someone who will administer their wedding for them. There are plenty of people now, justices of the peace and ministers, who are perfectly willing and happy to marry ALL people who want to be married. No problem there.

And of course people have a right to establish voluntary contracts for a same-sex marriage if they want to. That would be under the category of the people’s unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Who owns your life, you or your neighbors? The government?

Commercial transactions also need to be voluntary. No coercion. In commercial transactions contracts are based on private property rights and free exchange, that is, free of coercion. For example: the Christian bakers who didn’t want to serve the lesbian couple. The principle involved here and the rights to be protected in this case were private property rights and freedom of association, not religious liberty. Yes, the Christian bakers stated that they didn’t want to serve the lesbian couple because the bakers disapproved of the lesbians’ lifestyle based on the bakers’ religious views. But the business there, the bakery, is those Christians’ business. It does not belong to their neighbors, and it does not belong to the government. It is their private property, and the right to control with whom to do business is ultimately 100% their right. They have a right to choose to not do business with anyone they don’t want to do business with and for any reason. That is their property right to control that. It is also their basic freedom of association right to control their associations.

Now, when government laws and legislative acts are made to interfere with those bakers’ basic rights, those governmental intrusions are just that: intrusions which are violating their rights. No one has a right to force the bakers to bake a cake for them. So, as I’ve said previously, the real aggressor in that case were the lesbian couple who then sued the Christian bakers who wouldn’t serve them. The lesbian couple brought the armed powers of the State in there to financially punish those bakers for not doing extra labor to serve the lesbians. Besides dragging the bakers through the courts and causing them a lot of stress and anguish and taking a lot of time away from them, the lesbians also sought and received financial reward from the bakers, and that was nothing but extortion, in my view, a criminal act on the part of the lesbian couple.

Now, unfortunately, I believe that the activist Christians and conservatives who had been critical of those “civil rights” injustices are not consistent in their advocacy of “religious liberty.” For example, if the couple who wanted a cake for their wedding were Christians, and they sued atheist bakers for refusal of service, I would bet that most of these activist conservatives would come to the side of the Christian couple. And I believe that because most people in general just don’t understand the moral principles of private property rights and freedom of association. We see that when it comes to same-sex marriage. The conservatives just don’t want certain groups of people, ones that they disapprove of (such as homosexuals), to exercise their rights to “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

The main starting point for all this “civil rights” confusion and the further expansion of “protected classes” of people was the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As I have referred to previously, that Act rightfully repealed the Jim Crow laws which forced “whites-only” on privately owned businesses whether their owners liked it or not. And the Act prohibited discrimination by governmental functions such as the government schools, the public transportation services, the government-controlled parks, etc. But the Civil Rights Act should not have included privately owned businesses, no matter how large, no matter their function as a “public accommodation.” Once the separation between private property and “public” property began to be legislatively confused, I think that was the beginning of the end of private property rights in America (such as they were by that time, anyway), and also the beginning of an even bigger leap downward and backward toward a more demented and degenerate culture.

There has been a very unbecoming back-and-forth between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Apparently, an anti-Trump pro-Cruz PAC “Make America Awesome” had posted an ad featuring Trump’s wife Melania Trump posing nude or semi-nude (depending on your point of view, or how good your eyesight is) and the ad stating, “Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady … Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.”

Ted Cruz said that his campaign had nothing to do with that sleazy ad. But after Trump tweeted that he may have to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife Heidi, Cruz then warned Trump to stay away from candidates’ wives.

Well, they’re both a couple of jerks, in my view. This whole campaign has been the most bizarre and dirty I’ve ever seen. And certainly the least boring. I don’t think any past campaign comes close. I’ve been paying attention to these things especially since 1984.

I was thinking that the pro-Cruz anti-Trump PAC “Make America Awesome” couldn’t be THAT dumb in putting together that kind of sleazy ad featuring a candidate’s wife posing nude in the past, and saying that instead people should vote for Ted Cruz. So, my conclusion had been that that whole PAC maybe was actually a pro-Trump PAC and with the purpose of such an ad to make Ted Cruz look bad, and foolish. I was thinking, just who in his right mind who supports Cruz would be so dumb as to distribute an ad like that?

Ans then I saw this article regarding a Liz Mair who is the founder of that “Make America Awesome” PAC, who is saying that “Trumpkins” have been calling up her mother on the phone and leaving nasty messages. And she is threatening to press criminal charges against them. And then I see in the article that Mair is a dual citizen U.S. and the U.K.

Huh? A dual citizen? With the U.K.? And also, Mair tweeted that her group is “willing to spend small amounts of money to just troll and annoy Donald Trump, which seems to be working very well this week.” So she admits to being a “troll,” like that’s something respectable.

And, Mair also tweeted this about Trump’s speech at the AIPAC meeting: “How pissed are Trumpkins right now that their hero is talking to the Jooooooos?” (I copied and pasted that quote exactly as it is written in the linked article. Yes, she wrote that.)

So, I had asked who in his right mind (or her right mind) who supports Cruz would be so dumb as to distribute an ad like the Melania-nude ad? I guess Liz Mair has answered my question for me, and that the ad was not something out of the Trump camp to make Cruz look bad, but it really was by a Cruz PAC supposedly supporting Cruz but making him look bad anyway. (Perhaps Liz Mair needs a career change?)

And then just now out of nowhere I’m seeing these items about Ted Cruz, a.k.a. “Mr. Christian,” “Mr. Moral Values,” the televangelist preacher-Senator supposedly having multiple affairs, including with a teacher, a hooker, a Trump spokeswoman, a Fiorina deputy campaign manager, and more. Who does Cruz think he is, Jim Bakker? Jimmy Swaggart?

And also there is news that a Cruz PAC “Keep the Promise I” had made a huge donation of $500,000 to a Carly Fiorina PAC “CARLY for America.” like it was some sort of “hush money” or something? What’s going on with THIS guy? (IF that’s all true, that is.) Now, I’m not one to spread gossip, but we are talking about politicians, you know. Especially Washington pols, like Ted Scruz. The second linked article in this paragraph is to Target Liberty which discusses this whole issue, and refers to the National Enquirer which has a very good record overall on accuracy in its reporting on these kinds of things.

These candidates, everyone from Trump to Cruz, Bernie to Hillary, are all lowlifes and sleazebags as far as I’m concerned.

But as low and sleazy, dirty and disgusting as this whole Presidential campaign has been, you can’t say that it’s been boring, that’s for sure.

I was listening to one of the conservative talk shows on the radio, and while I can’t remember which one this was on, I heard Sue from Pennsylvania making a reference to “microaggression” discussions or workshops taking place at the workplace. What? You mean that crap isn’t just going on at the college campuses? It’s now at workplaces? That’s nuts.

First of all, this whole “microaggression” stuff is a made-up concept that just doesn’t exist, except in the wild imaginations of those who like to make things up and play games with other people’s minds and emotions, and with their own minds and emotions, apparently.

And secondly, there is no such thing as “microaggression.” There are only aggression and non-aggression. And that’s it.

Aggression is a physical act. That is when someone initiates some kind of physical force or intrusion against someone else’s person or property.

Now, I know there are those on the Left who don’t believe in “property rights” (except of course when their iPhones or stereos or Volvos are stolen, then they conveniently believe in property rights). As flawed as the U.S. Constitution is, it does rightfully recognize a “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” in its Fourth Amendment. In other words, people have a right that their persons and their property be secure. The idea of self-ownership is included in this, in which your person is also your property. You have a property right in your person that it not be the object of the aggression of others.

Unfortunately there are very thin-skinned people out there who really believe that certain kinds of verbal expression can be considered an act of aggression. No, not if those acts are not physical acts which violate or intrude into the persons or property of others. Aggression violates actual physical boundaries.

However, some forms of verbal expression can be considered under the category of aggression if they are explicit, direct threats against others. That’s different.

There may be some forms of verbal expression which are not threats such as mere name-calling, teasing, insults, criticism and so on, which may be perceived as acts of aggression by the targets of such expressions. But they are still not actual acts of aggression or threats of it. Those perceptions of such name-calling, teasing, insults, criticism and so on are subjective perceptions. But they still are not threats of aggression. Threats of aggression must be direct and explicit verbal expressions. This is why the idea of freedom of speech and expression includes MANY forms of verbal speech and expression which are not explicit threats against others.

The problem is that those very thin-skinned people out there whose feelings are apparently damaged by non-explicit non-threats and non-aggressive acts but by mere verbal expressions, actually want to use the armed power of the government and police to shut other people up, to silence others whose verbal expression the thin-skinned ones don’t like. Everyone from the college cupcakes to government bureaucrats who don’t like to be criticized.

Ironically, THESE people, the thin-skinned ones, are the ones who believe in using acts of actual physical aggression to punish, silence, incarcerate, torture, or kill those who have a different point of view, who dissent from the majority consensus, who criticize the government or the Obama Regime, who criticize Hillary Rotten Clinton or Donald Rotten Trump, who give their opinions on phony “transgender” people whose lives are being ruined by their social authority figures with a sick agenda, and so on.

But it’s not just the activists on the Left such as at college campuses who believe in using actual physical aggression against others. There are people who want to jail “Holocaust deniers,” (No, I’m not a “Holocaust denier,” but people do have a right to think and believe whatever they want, even if they are ignoramuses.), and who want to jail or otherwise punish critics of Israel (Yes, I am a critic of Israel.). And there are people who want to jail, fine, or beat up those who criticize American flag-worship, who criticize the narcissistic and psychopathic idea of “American Exceptionalism,” and those who believe in equal protection under the law and that the right to bear arms and self-defense means that people have a right to fight back when police threaten their lives, and who do not support the phony “war on terror” and who criticize interventionist U.S. government foreign policy.

Freedom of speech is in line with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as written in the Declaration of Independence. So, a criminal act is one which is an actual act of aggression against the persons or property of others. And that would include the explicit threat of aggression against others. So no act of speech or expression other than threats should be considered a “crime.” And this ties in with the other aspects of what had been considered “crimes” which are not crimes, but just actions or behaviors that some people view as “immoral” or “insulting.”

Why are things becoming so confusing now? I think there were two things that played a role: 9/11 and the Global Warming/Climate Change movement.

As I wrote here, the college-aged young people now at age 18-24 (or in their later 20s) were born from 1991-1997. That means that they were between age 4 and 10 when the September 11th attacks of 2001 occurred. So, all the post-9/11 government and media propaganda and fear-mongering must have really affected those who were little kids at that time. And add to that all the Al Gore-Global Warming terrorizing of the kids by the educrats throughout the 2000s.

No wonder some of them have an irrational need for a “safe space.” No wonder the slightest thing “triggers” something in them. So there are some explanations for why the young people now want to just silence those whose diversity in ideas and opinion make the snowflakes feel bad.

Now combine all that government-sponsored terrorizing of kids and propaganda with many American’s refusal to examine history (regarding the real causes of 9/11 and other terrorist acts: blowback against the U.S. government’s intrusions overseas) and with the Climate Change fanatacs’ refusal to examine actual scientific empirical data. Instead, the nationalist government-worshipers condemn critics of U.S. government foreign policy, and the warmists want to censor those who promote not computer models but actual scientific data. And combine all that with the propagandistic “education” more accurately known as indoctrination that kids are getting especially since Jimma Carter’s federal Department of Education and Ronald Reagan’s refusal to abolish it.

Back to the concepts of aggression vs. non-aggression.

Many people still see anything the U.S. government does as justified even when it is in the wrong. And by “wrong” I don’t mean “incorrect,” I mean morally wrong. Unfortunately the “Moral Majority” conservatives have been promoting and supporting the U.S. government’s immoral wars of aggression especially since the 1991 Gulf War of aggression that George H.W. Bush started for no good reason. Therefore they have ZERO credibility when it comes to their preaching about morality and “protecting innocent human life.” And their criticism of “microaggression” junk is also lacking in credibility when they have supported jailing flag-burners, and critics of the so-called “war on terror.”

And yes, the 1991 Bush Gulf War on Iraq was a war of aggression. George H.W. Bush took the U.S. military and invaded Iraq, a country that was of no threat to the U.S. It was a war of aggression, and Bush’s war was propagandized to a large extent to get the gullible Americans to support it. And then ten years later, his son George W. Bush started a war of aggression into Afghanistan, a country that was of no threat to us, and 2nd war of aggression against Iraq (that was really a continuation of the first Bush’s first war of aggression in Iraq).

So as America continues on its road to full collapse, and while Americans are still so brainwashed to believe that they actually need a President, we have this useless Presidential campaign with two Democrats who believe the Climate Change anti-science fanaticism and this “microaggression” crapola, and we have Republicans who are mainly neocons and warmongers who don’t believe that for peace to occur you yourself have to actually behave peacefully. And they all believe in economic socialism, they all oppose freedom of speech, private property rights, due process, and they all favor a strong government police and heavily armed governmental apparatus ruling over a weakened, dependent, defenseless and subjugated civilian population.

If we have to have this centralized monopoly apparatus in Washington ruling over us, then we should get someone in there who will pardon all truly innocent non-criminal prisoners in all the jails and prisons who have not harmed anyone, who have not violated anyone else’s person or property, and set them free to live their lives. And someone who will promise to pardon any non-criminal in the future who is being persecuted by the real criminals in the government’s racket of anti-liberty “justice” in the government courts. And someone who will shut down the U.S. government’s empire, close all foreign U.S. military bases as well as all the domestic criminal bureaucracies whose existence is solely to babysit parasites who feed off the hard labor of others.

A lot of things have been really bothering me lately. It really is another time for “Stop the world, I’m getting off,” and so on and so forth. Why are so many people so irrational now? Is it something in the water?

For starters, Bruce Jenner, a.k.a “Caitlyn” Jenner and Boston Bruins player Patrice Bergeron are launching a campaign promoting a transgender anti-discrimination bill in the Massachusetts legislature. This new law will apply to all public accommodations including public rest rooms. Yeah, it’s one of those things. The Boston Glob notes, “Opponents say they are concerned about the privacy rights of women and girls who might feel uncomfortable sharing a bathroom or locker room with a person born with male anatomy, but identifying as a woman.”

Ya think? Or male perverts who just want to go into the ladies room to take a peek (and who knows what!). They’re out there, as the late Jerry Williams used to say.

It would be helpful if social activists such as Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner would learn about the ideas of self-ownership, private property rights, and common decency, that’s for sure.

But one thing I’ve really learned lately about the activists on the Left is their selfishness. The “transgender” person who is a male but thinks he’s a female says he can’t go into the men’s room. Why? Why is THAT such a big deal? He feels uncomfortable? So he wants to go into the ladies room in which he’s going to make a whole bunch of ladies uncomfortable! Like the whole world revolves around him!

But then there were those lesbian activists who, even though they were able to get a different baker to serve them, they still felt compelled to criminally extort funds from the Christian bakers who wouldn’t serve them because the Christian bakers were opposed to the lesbians’ way of life. So the selfish, criminal extortionist activists feel it’s their right to compel others to do extra labor to serve their needs involuntarily! They are degenerates, and to Hell with people like that as far as I’m concerned. (And I would say the same thing if the activists were a Christian couple taking atheist bakers to court for their refusal of service. So, I’m an equal opportunity critic.)

Talk about idiots. And now at Harvard, they are contemplating banning students from joining all-male clubs and associations (but not all-female clubs or associations!). This anti-male crap is based on, I just don’t know, they’re all crazy now, in my view, who knows what’s going on with the “womens’ rights” activists these days. I doubt that Helen Reddy went through all that bra-burning for this.

Harvard is the “university” known for formally changing pronouns to “gender-neutral” made-up words to protect the fragile cupcakes from being “offended” and “triggered” by the use of the words, “he,” “him,” “she,” “her,” and so on. They’re nuts there now. If I had kids of college age, I would not send them to any of these “schools,” these places of cultural indoctrination idiocy. There is also a move to get white people to commit suicide for their “white privilege” sins. Can you believe this? So the racist activists on the Left think just as collectivistically as the Archie Bunker racists on the other side. Can you imagine a white organization calling for prosecuting all black people because one black person committed some crime? Only collectivists think like that. This anti-white and anti-male stuff is for extremely simple-minded people, and it has to stop.

We can go on and on about a whole bunch of nudnik activists out there, such as the activists who hate Donald Trump and feel it’s their right to block traffic and inconvenience hundreds of people who might need to go to the doctor or who have business appointments, and so on. Talk about selfish, self-centered morons!

And then there are the other Trump haters who are now engaging in “blacklisting” Trump supporters. And, according to WND, it’s a lot of people who favor blacklisting, not just one or two, like this is the anti-communist scare of the 1950s! I’ll bet there are a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists out there whose business is picking up now as a result of this really crazy campaign season. (I hope I haven’t offended anyone by writing that. If I have, tough noogies.)

Now, for those Trump fans out there who really believe that he will be against political correctness, think again. We know that he is a pathologically arrogant narcissist (like many of the above aforementioned). He believes that he has the right to call Rosie O’Donnell, Megyn Kelly and others “pigs” and say other insulting things to specific targets as well as whole groups of people such as Mexicans and Muslims. Yet if someone has the nerve to criticize Trump or bring up some uncomfortable truth about him, he sues the critic or threatens to do so. So, “free speech for me but not for thee” is what he is all about. He is thin-skinned. And also, his views are on the Left including promoting nationalized health care/single payer and eminent domain and all that leftists love so dearly. Combine all that with his collectivistic nationalism and his authoritarianism, and this “great America” stuff. Trump very well would be a dictator who will determine that it will be politically incorrect if anyone criticizes the “great” U.S. government and all the corrupt buffoons it employs. He will be just as bad a political correctness censor against free speech and the First Amendment as the Hillarys and the LGBT crowd out there are.

One other thing that’s been bothering me has been radio newscasters, political pundits, and other speakers I’ve heard who use the determiner “a” before a word starting with a vowel, such as “a opportunity,” and pronounced “uh opportunity.” It makes them sound dumb, and they should stop doing it. Say “an opportunity.” There’s a reason for that, the words flow better while you’re speaking. And also I’ve heard people pronouncing the determiner “the” as “thuh” also before a word starting with a vowel. If it’s before a vowel, “the” should be pronounced as “thee.” At least that is how I learned that and have always heard it spoken, until recent years. I’m talking network radio newscasters and reporters saying things such as, “Thuh aggression started at the Trump rally,” and so on. It should be pronounced as “thee aggression.” And it seems like it’s all the time now. (Is it the fluoride? The pharmaceutical drugs? The marijuana? Or are today’s “adults” so poorly educated that they sound like they are? Don’t people listen to themselves when they talk?)

I’m listening to all these panicky pols and their little minions on the radio, in the newscasts and the talk shows. All these chicken littles can think about is their neurotic little political strategizing. You see, government is the structure by which anyone can steal from his neighbors and get away with it. Having a government with monopolies of functions and the power to “legitimately” steal from the people is the means that everybody can steal from everybody else. The Republicrat Party clowns are afraid that their parasitism might have to end.

The existence of that centralized government in Washington causes many people to think only in the short-term. With a collectivized treasury that contains funds stolen from the workers and producers of society, it is the government piggy bank that the short-sighted ones want to get their hands on. Never mind saving for the future, never mind watching one’s budget because there will always be something for you even if our rulers have to borrow from future generations. Which is what they’ve been doing.

In such a system the time preferences of the people are very short-sighted. Hans-Hermann Hoppe has asserted that such a present-oriented society of government theft of private wealth and government violations of private property rights engenders the de-civilization of society. Hoppe discusses those themes in his great book, Democracy: The God That Failed.

Time preferences, by the way, are yet another politically incorrect subject to discuss, as Hoppe found out the hard way.

In this very important article, Prof. Hoppe discusses the time preferences of those being ruled in a democratic society in which the government is “publicly owned.”

The imposition of a government tax on property or income violates a property owner’s and income producer’s rights as much as theft does. In both cases, the owner-producer’s supply of goods is diminished against his will and without his consent…

As well, any government regulation as to what an owner may or may not do with his property — beyond the rule that no one may physically damage the property of others and that all exchange and trade be voluntary and contractual — implies a “taking” of somebody’s property, on a par with acts of extortion, robbery, or destruction. But taxation, the government’s provision for liquidity, and government regulations, unlike their criminal equivalents, are considered legitimate, and the victim of government interference, unlike the victim of a crime, is not entitled to physically defend and protect his property.

Owing to their legitimacy, then, government violations of property rights affect individual time preferences in a systematically different and much more profound way than crime. Like crime, all government interference with private property rights reduces someone’s supply of present goods and thus raises his effective time-preference rate. However, government offenses — unlike crime — simultaneously raise the time preference degree of actual and potential victims because they also imply a reduction in the supply of future goods (a reduced rate of return on investment).

Crime, because it is illegitimate, occurs only intermittently — the robber disappears from the scene with his loot and leaves his victim alone. Thus, crime can be dealt with by increasing one’s demand for protective goods and services so as to restore or even increase one’s future rate of investment return and make it less likely that the same or a different robber will succeed a second time.

In contrast, because they are legitimate, governmental property rights violations are continual. The offender does not disappear into hiding but stays around, and the victim does not “arm” himself but must (at least he is generally expected to) remain defenseless. The actual and potential victims of government property-rights violations respond by associating a permanently higher risk with all future production, and systematically adjusting their expectations concerning the rate of return on all future investment downward.

By simultaneously reducing the supply of present and expected future goods, then, governmental property-rights violations not only raise time preference rates (with given schedules) but also time-preference schedules. Because owner-producers are — and see themselves as — defenseless against future victimization by government agents, their expected rate of return on productive, future-oriented actions is reduced all-around, and accordingly, all actual and potential victims become more present-oriented.

Because of the way the system is now, even “conservative free-market” politicians such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have been promoting worse tax schemes such as the VAT in addition to merely rearranging the tax structure to appear that they are lowering the people’s taxes while they keep the taxes high. The thought of making trillions in cuts and eliminating whole parts of the federal government is frightening even to those “conservatives” who are afraid of losing votes from whatever interest group might lose out when a whole department or program is abolished. Those politicians’ craving for votes to keep them in power is their own short-term, present-oriented time preference to continue their own parasitism at the public trough.

And we saw in 2008 how important it was to siphon off billions more in tax-stolen dollars to bailout the big banks, to keep the gravy train going. Now, the short-sighted, immediate-gratification oriented Establishment hacks are supposedly afraid that a President Trump will end their gravy train for them. And no, a President Trump will do nothing of the sort. But the hacks are acting like it’s the end of the world, and they say they would rather have Hillary as president.

The only politician in my memory who has recognized the failures of socialism and central planning and actually proposed to do something about it (get rid of it) was Ron Paul.

So Hoppe’s description of the publicly owned government and society’s present orientation is a good explanation of why Ron Paul was criticized for his proposals of cutting massive government waste. In response to Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” crapola, Ron Paul replied, “0-0-0”! Dr. Paul seems to have been the only one to recognize the moral hazard of the socialist government monopolies and redistribution schemes we have now.

Here is Dr. Paul explaining such issues very well in what I think was one of his best interviews, in 2010.

So I think in all the 2016 Presidential “debates” the discussions have degenerated down to catering to the lowest common denominator, no real solutions to the financial and economic problems, only name-calling and threats of physical violence. America is going to Hell in a handbasket and it shows, big time now.

And just listen to all the talk radio hysterics, some so concerned that Hillary might get elected they’ll hold their nose and vote for Trump. And others saying they will never vote for Trump.

Everything now is dependent on this election, the most important ever!

No, it’s not. These politicians are all the same, and Trump is just another one of them, an ignorant authoritarian gasbag who will be just as dangerous as Hillary will be, and just as Obama and Bush have been.

Oh, and they are acting the same way with this Supreme Court vacancy, and Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill it. Listen to the schmucks in the Senate saying that they will not allow a vote on it until after the election. Meanwhile, President Hillary’s nomination might very well be much worse. (Think Ruth Bader Ginsburg on steroids.) So perhaps it could be in their own interests to just let Judge Garland get the damn spot. It doesn’t matter anyway, since the Justices (sic) all vote (at least 99% of the time) against the rights of the individual and in favor of the government’s power and control.

When the society is dependent on 9 lettered imbeciles to decide whether or not the people may have their freedom, that society is probably doomed. (Ya think?)

By the way, on NPR Jamie Gorelick mentioned that Judge Garland is “red-green colorblind, so he has a list of which ties go with which suits.”

Huh? “Red-green colorblind”? Does that mean he doesn’t know whether to “go” or to “stop”? How many accidents has he caused? (Just askin’.)

However, given how scheming the Obama-Sanders-Clinton social agitators are, Obama could be nominating the prosecutor-sympathizing Garland as a way to lure the Rethuglicans to approve him for the High Court, toward the Left’s goal of disarming the civilian population. It appears that he is not good on the right to keep and bear arms and the 2nd Amendment. The Left loves a good, heavily armed government police state and a weakened and defenseless civilian population, just as much as the conservatwits do.

So, when it comes to long-term planning vs. shortsightedness, the Left plans their schemes for decades toward a final, future goal. (Albeit not a goal for the good, that’s for sure.)

If there are hearings for the Supreme Court nominee, let’s hope that Senators ask Judge Garland what his thoughts are on not just the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but if he believes they even have a right to defend themselves at all. I’d like to see Senators ask these nominees questions about their actual philosophies, their views on natural rights, due process, etc.

Here is a U.S. Senator asking questions regarding self-defense of then-Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in 2010 (Kagan, the die-hard socialist who opposes free speech and who had been running for Supreme Court since high school), yes that Elena Kagan.):

There were more Presidential primaries yesterday, in “Super Tuesday III.” So will Donald Trump win the GOP nomination? If so, he will probably lose the election to Hillary in November. That is, unless Hillary gets indicted. But I doubt that will happen.

Now, if you Republican stalwarts and conservatives out there don’t like Donald Trump being the Republican nominee, then you should discourage open primaries. The reason he is winning so much is all those open primaries in which Democrats and other outsiders go into the Republican primaries and vote for him. Those non-Republicans know that no way will Trump win a general election, and they therefore want him to be the GOP nominee. If the primaries were all closed primaries, for only registered Republicans to vote, then we would see Ted Cruz or one of those others winning more states.

And now that “Little Marco” has dropped out of the race, perhaps it’s time for John Kasich to do the same. Kasich won his home state of Ohio, but it is mathematically impossible for him to get the GOP nomination now. He is just a “spoiler.” Which to me is a good thing. But if I were advising him, I would tell him to get out. His place in history will already be that little asterisk, so perhaps it doesn’t matter what he does. However, I’d like to see Ted Cruz get out, too (as well as Donald Trump, Hillary and Bernie as well. I’m sick of all of them!).

But sadly, there is a lot of enthusiasm for Donald Trump to be the next U.S. President, even among those who are not fascists and totalitarians.

So last year it was a bit disappointing when “Mr. Libertarian” Walter Block showed a great deal of enthusiasm for Rand Paul, despite the younger Dr. Paul’s contempt for libertarianism at every turn, Rand’s promotion of war overseas and U.S. government meddling in other countries’ affairs, and his awful tax plan, and some very anti-liberty statements he has made. Sure Rand Paul defended the Fourth Amendment against NSA criminality, and he criticized drones, but he apparently is clueless in understanding the ideas of liberty and private property rights. So I concluded that Dr. Block’s enthusiastic endorsement of Rand Paul was perhaps for more personal reasons given that Block has been friends with Rand’s father Ron Paul for many years.

But now, Walter Block seems to be going off the deep end, in his forming a new group called “Libertarians for Trump.” This despite the fact that Donald Trump has no understanding of the ideas of liberty, the non-aggression principle, free market capitalism, and that Trump actually opposes the idea of private property rights. “Libertarian”? Trump is far from it. I agree with Robert Wenzel that Trump’s authoritarianism is a big reason why libertarians should sit this one out.

It just seems to me that Donald Trump has been saying one thing to one group and the opposite thing to another group, he says bomb the **** out of “ISIS” and then he says that U.S. should stay out of Middle East wars, he says if you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato then beat the crap out of him and he will pay your legal fees, and then he says he didn’t say that. In other words, he’s a typical manipulative, lying politician. And yes, Trump is a politician, he’s been running for President for 25 years now. On the issues he is clueless about many subjects and has no idea what he’s talking about, from health care to immigration. I know, a lot of people agree with his rhetoric on immigration (which he has been softening up, by the way) and protectionism, as statist and socialist as all that is. He appeals to the worst in people, calling for a closed society with a wall on the border and economic restrictions on his own fellow Americans. Yet it’s entirely possible that he could be doing all this as a straw to bring down the GOP on behalf of the Clintons, as I wondered here.

After all, why would Trump intentionally do things like encourage a Hitlerian hand-raising pledge of loyalty, knowing that his doing that would lose more votes for a general election? Or is he too dumb to realize that? And he MUST be aware that his making statements encouraging violence is losing more votes in a general election. So, he’s either really dumb (which is very possible) or he’s intentionally sinking the GOP’s chance of winning in November. If I’m right that he’s doing this on behalf of Democrats or Hillary, then it’s probably a long-planned scheme. The Clintons are very scheming psychopaths. (And it’s also possible that Bernie Ward Bernie Sanders could be in it because he was pressured to do so also, and for the purpose of expressing the communist cradle-to-grave-everything so that Hillary doesn’t have to do that herself.)

Some people say that Trump “says what he thinks,” although I think it’s less thinking and more emotionalism, and that it’s more accurate to state that he says what comes to mind, not exactly “thinking.” He’d be very interesting in the psychiatrist’s office, if you know what I mean. However, like some pols, Trump is a very shrewd manipulator, as we are seeing him exploiting the anti-Establishment, anti-Washington sentiment that’s definitely out there. We know that he is not genuinely anti-Establishment, given all his wheeling and dealing over the years with the power-wielders, his thousands and thousands of $ in donations to Sen. Sleazebag and Congresswoman Slimeball for many years now.

But this Donald Trump phenomenon has been helping to further expose the senselessness and uselessness of these campaigns. A President Trump will not change things and will only continue to raise the national debt, the intrusiveness of the federal government, domestically and internationally, and will further dysfunctionalize, isolate and close off America. Given how clueless and ignorant he is, he will be just as bad as Obama has been, or worse. Given how authoritarian and anti-liberty Trump is, he will push through the same kinds of fascist policies that Bush pushed through after 9/11, like the Patriot Act which the morons in Congress blindly voted for without even reading the bill. They will give Trump the same rubber-stamping. And given how left-wing liberal his true philosophical views are, he will also push for liberal policies as he thinks with his heart. However, I doubt that a President Hillary or a President Bernie Goetz Bernie Sanders could get anything passed. Their Marxist policies will not get through a Republican Congress. (Another reason to divert your attention away from the Presidency, and toward local offices, if you think that matters.)

And boy, are people obsessed with this election! Like it’s the most important thing in the whole universe or something. Every time I turn on the radio and hear the usual talk radio shows, it’s nothing but this Presidential election, how many delegates does this schmuck need to win, and how many states does that shyster need to win. People are obsessed with all this like it means anything. And no, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s all a waste of time. And a waste of money, too! Are you a moron who wastes your hard-earned money on these criminals? And for what? You have “hope” for “change”? Better to spend your money on some good books and learn more about liberty to further spread the word.

So it really doesn’t matter who is elected President. They are all bad. And I hear some people saying on the radio, “Two words: Supreme Court.”

“Oh, we have to make sure a Republican gets elected to the White House, so s/he will appoint a Supreme Court Justice to protect our rights.” Yech. Barf me out. No, it really doesn’t matter. The Supreme Bureaucrats mainly rubber stamp the regime, or various criminal police powers that state and local departments give themselves or legislatures give them. They are statists who come to the defense of the State and against the rights of the individual. We see that in most cases. That is another reason why Leviathan and its tyranny have grown not just from the federal government but from state and local regimes as well.

So, with the Supreme Bureaucrats, it’s all a gamble. (Notice how “bureaucrat” ends in “rat”? Just sayin’.)

The system of centralization and collectivist redistributionism based on taxation-theft is the main basis of what is taking America down like all the other socialist cesspools of world history. The system needs to be dismantled, root and branch, as I’ve said before. None of these politician-criminals can make a criminal system “work,” because it is impractical as well as immoral. The only politician who came slightly close to saying the truth about all this was Ron Paul. But the ignorant conservatives and neocons of the Repugnican party arrogantly snubbed him, in the name of protecting the power structure of the centralized regime in Washington.

We live in a world of control freaks, unfortunately, those who have an insatiable craving to control the world around them, to control people and activities which are really beyond their control.

The control freaks use various forms of aggression and intervention via government authority and force to attempt to achieve their goals of controlling.

And it isn’t just controlling behavior, but covetousness in which the aggressors use the armed force of government to take from others, not just taking wealth or property directly but also taking less visible commodities such as time and opportunity. Minimum wage laws, for instance, take opportunities away from prospective entry-level workers, and government’s unjust tax laws cause people to waste time filling out complicated forms for no good reason.

And there are those who want to intrude into the trades and purchasing activities of businesses and consumers.

But when we hear mainstream media outlets and economists refer to “free trade,” most of them are not talking about actual free trade, but mainly government-controlled trade. Most if not all the international trade agreements and regulations we have today contain provisions which benefit crony special interests and the politically connected, at the expense of the rest of us. That is not “free trade,” not in the least.

You see, in contrast to the phony free trade deals of today, real free trade is just that: free trade. Freedom from the aggression, intrusions, invasions, interferences, interventions, trespasses of others, including governments.

When the chains of the State are cut, free market capitalism flourishes, regardless of nationalistic sentiments.

Free trade and free markets involve voluntary action and voluntary exchange, and respect for private property rights. It does not involve the illicit collusions of governments.

So here, for instance, is an example of free trade: a businessman in the U.S. calls a company in Germany that makes a certain kind of product the American businessman believes to be beneficial to his business and his customers. He orders the German product for his business, perhaps thousands of them. The products are delivered. He puts them to use. And that’s it.

No bureaucrat’s permission. No “treaties” to follow to determine that the product was not made by “slave labor” or “sweat shops” or child laborers, or that the product was made out of x% this and y% that. The contract there is between the American businessman and the German company. No third party intrusions. At least that is how I view free trade and free markets. Or am I way off on that?

There is a moral reason for unobstructed, unmolested free trade, for traders, producers and consumers having the freedom to decide for themselves on a free and open market what products or services are best for them and at whatever price.

And having the freedom to do business with whatever company or trade with whomever one wants to trade anywhere in the world seems to be a freedom in line with private property rights, voluntary association and freedom of contract. That way of life is the moral, civilized way of life.

That’s the American way. (At least in theory, according to what the Founders envisioned for their freed country.)

Now, when third parties view a trade as “unfair,” they certainly have a right to express their disagreement. But they don’t have a right to impose their will on the consumers. When third parties interfere with the market and private individuals’ production and consumption decisions, those interferences are intrusions.

In a society which respects real free trade, when government bureaucrats and their enforcers interfere with or intrude into the peaceful trades and exchanges among people, that should be considered just as criminal an act as if mere private people were committing those aggressions. The “authority” of government bureaus or Presidents would not exempt those bureaucrats from the law which forbids stealing, defrauding or aggressing against the persons or property of others.

Some Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump want to “make America great again.” But how can someone make America “great” when he wants to empower the government to intrude itself into the people’s economic matters? Government-imposed managed trade (a.k.a. “fair” trade) rules, governments imposing punishments on companies locating abroad, etc. — those kinds of intrusions have contributed to making America less great over the past century.

So what really made America great was its freedom. Remember that? By the 20th Century activists and bureaucrats started imposing one restriction and punishment after another which continue to this day.

In an America with freedom (perhaps at some point in the future), private entrepreneurs, consumers and traders establish transactions and contracts with others anywhere in the world and it’s no one else’s business. Americans with Mexicans, businessmen with laborers or consumers, Americans with Chinese, Japanese, Venezuelans, and so on. No bureaucratic intrusions. No control freaks sticking their big noses where they don’t belong.

NAFTA (The Orwellian North American “Free Trade” Agreement) and other such agreements do not involve free trade. Those are government agreements which create anti-market bureaucracies, arcane rules and regulations, corporate cartels. Such schemes cause economic distortions resulting in higher prices for consumers and job losses for workers. Donald Trump can no better concoct such deals to “work for Americans” than can Barack Obama come up with an “affordable care act” that works for medical patients.

Now, in a scenario in which Americans’ trade matters were freed, if another country‘s ruling bureaucrats have restrictions against their own people then so be it. That, in fact, would actually shine a brighter light onto those foreigners’ unfree situation and one would hope they would make some changes for themselves there.

Freedom of voluntary contract would be the basis of true economic freedom and prosperity, in which the only rules are: Don’t steal, don’t commit fraud and don’t use physical aggression against others’ persons and property. People are presumed innocent and otherwise left alone, and that’s it.

The same kind of freedom can apply to the people’s medical care, by the way — and no, there wouldn’t be “people dying in the streets” with a return to the free market medical care of the old days. Sadly, the kind of British-style nationalized health care or single payer scheme that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders want to impose on us really has been causing people to be dying in the British hospitals. I’ll never understand why so many people want to emulate Soviet medical care.

Yeah, but look what’s happening to all the victims of those thinking with their hearts. Not good.

Unfortunately, the Presidential candidates may have a “make America great again” theme, yet they seem to be infected with a destructive anti-capitalistic mentality. Politicians (and their crony business partners in crime) will never make America great again with the very socialist bureaucratic authoritarianism that caused America’s greatness to sour in the first place.

But we who love freedom, free trade and free markets, will nevertheless continue to try to get the word out, especially when history has shown that what really made America great in the past were freedom, free trade, and free markets.